Crowdfunding or crowd financing which usually occurs via the Internet involves the process of individuals pooling their money to finance a specific project managed by the investors or the people who initiated the project.

This funding method is often used in Internet-based projects such as free software development. However, it has also been applied to more traditional for-profit and even non-profit projects such as funding start-up companies, scientific research, making donations to disaster relief, and contributing to political campaigns.